HIGH PLANES MODELS

1/72
Seafire IIC

by David Harvey

Introduction

The Seafire was a development of the Spitfire Mk Vc to enable it to
go on RN carriers. It incorporated a number of changes to make it suitable
for Naval use including fueslage strengthening plates, arrestor hooks
and catapult spools.

Instructions

The kit comes with a four page instruction sheet including colour profiles
of the aircraft covered by this kit. There isn't much of the sheet for
the actual construction of the kit as it is more directed towards the
marking side of things.

The
kit

The kit comes with two sprues of the usual light blue plastic, a bag
of resin bits and two vacform canopies. As per all of the High Planes kits
I have seen, you will require to do extensive clean up work to the parts
due to the amount of flash present. The instruction also states this
and recommends constant dry fitting for all parts. They also suggest
that you use the canopy as the guage for the fueslage width.

Starting off with the plastic (photo
1 to 4), we have the usual thick sprue gates connecting the parts to
the sprue with heaps of flash to remove from the individual parts. The
parts themselves feature very fine panel lines for the fueslage and wings.
As image 2 shows, the cockpit is not as good as the outside of the fueslage
since the side walls are bare. You are provided with a basic cockpit
that consists of instrument panel, floor and seat (joystick in resin).
These parts should come up very well and with care will fill out the
cockpit nicely. The wheel bay covers will need some work as the inside
is quite nice but the outside will require some sanding to make it look
respectable. You get a 4 balded prop with the kit but that's for a
different version as you are provided with the correct three bladed prop
in the resin bits.

The resin (image 5) includes all of the remaining parts for the kit.
The majority of the parts are of high quality and look very good. The
one negative for the resin parts are the tail planes, they have an irregular
surface to them that will require sanding to make them look right with
the possibility of losing the fine detail on them. High planes supplies
two vacform canopies for the kit so you get a second chance if you mess
up the first one.

1

2

3

4

5

Decals

The kit supplies you with decals for three different aircraft as follows:

These decals are printed by Wessex Transfers and come with a limited
set of stencils due to the amount of repainting of Seafires. All of the
decals included look very good, including the stencils.

Summary

In summary I think that this is another good effort from High Planes
Models. As the front of the box states 'For experienced modellers only'
and they are not kidding! With careful fitting and painting this will
produce a fine replica of a Seafire Mk IIc. The only down points to this
otherwise good kits are the side walls of the cockpit and the tail planes
as I mentioned above.